UGA PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING PROFESSOR'S LECTURE TO BE BROADCAST ON C-SPAN

Abstract

Thursday, September 7, 2000

CONTACT: Ed Larson, (706) 542-2660

WRITER: Kathy R. Pharr, (706) 542-5172

UGA PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING PROFESSOR'S LECTURE TO BE BROADCAST ON C-SPAN

ATHENS, Ga. - University of Georgia law and history professor Ed Larson, whose book on the Scopes trial won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for history, will be featured in a nationwide broadcast on C-SPAN Saturday night, September 9, at 9:35 p.m. EST.

C-SPAN will broadcast the July lecture Larson presented in Dayton, Tennessee, the site of the legendary 1925 trial, as part of its "American Perspectives" series. Larson's commentary, "The 75th Anniversary of the Scopes Trial," examines the lasting cultural impact of America's first "trial of the century."

Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, chronicled the event, which pitted famed attorneys Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan in a legal debate over the teaching of creationism and evolution in public schools.

"The Scopes trial crystallized the issue of individual liberty -- free speech and academic freedom in a democratic society -- and the tensions about tyranny of the majority versus individual rights," said Larson. "It became the episode in our American history that best captures that issue, and it resonates just as much today as it did 75 years ago."

Larson, UGA's Richard B. Russell Professor of History and Law, joined the university in 1987. He has just completed another well received book, a history of scientific research on the Galapagos Islands. In February, he was awarded the prestigious George Sarton Award honoring a historian of science for a body of work.

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